10 Ordering Tips To Get The Best McDonald’s Breakfast

Most fast food chains either do the bare minimum with their breakfast options just to say they have them, or don’t even have breakfast items at all. Neither is true of McDonald’s, which easily features the best fast food chain breakfast menu both in terms of quantity and quality. You can order everything from a quick bite to a full-on meal, and then wash it down with one of the chain’s rather impressive lineup of coffee drinks. And the greatness of ordering breakfast at McDonald’s doesn’t stop at the standard menu offerings, either.

Most of the menu features rather deep customization options — some are obvious, and others may require some investigating of all the available substitutions. But they all allow you to tweak your breakfast exactly to your liking. Whether it’s taking components of one sandwich and putting them into another, playing with the different egg options, or hacking something entirely new, these tricks will ensure that you can have breakfast at McDonald’s every day for an entire month or more and get something different every time. Now if only McDonald’s could grant our wish and go back to offering breakfast all day again, you’d be able to try these tricks for lunch and dinner as well. Fingers crossed!

Just as no McDonald’s burger is complete without an order of those iconic golden french fries, you have to pair your McDonald’s breakfast sandwich with one of those delightful hash brown patties. And while they work great as a separate side dish, we recommend literally pairing them with your next breakfast sandwich by sticking the hash brown right inside the sandwich itself. As far as which sandwich works best with a hash brown stuck inside of it, that’s entirely up to you. The starchy, salty crunch is a great addition to all of McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches, honestly.

But if you are looking for a recommendation to get started on your hash brown-on-a-sandwich journey, we recommend the Sausage McMuffin with Egg. It’s the perfect blend of textures and flavors, and it’s one of the simpler breakfast sandwiches in terms of ingredients, so you won’t feel like there is too much going on. After that, we say go for one of the McGriddles, as obviously, pancakes and potatoes complement each other well and are often eaten together on traditional breakfast plates anyway.

Speaking of McDonald’s hash browns, there is a certain way that you can — nay, should — order them if you want the best version of what they can be. By requesting that your hash browns be prepared “well done,” you can ensure they are cooked a little longer for crispier edges on the outside. Not only that, but getting them well done also seems to make the potatoes on the inside taste even creamier, almost like mashed potatoes. We can’t explain how it works, but we know that it does. And because the method to get hash browns that way is so easy to order, there is no reason not to just go ahead and do it every single time.

The difference is immediately noticeable, and you’ll have trouble going back to the default once you’ve had them well done. That being said, it is possible that you’ll find the crunchiness to be a bit overpowering when you are putting the hash browns on a sandwich per the previous entry, preferring them that way only when you are eating the hash brown by itself. But try it first to see if that’s the case, as you might find that you actually love how audibly crunchy a well-done hash brown makes your sandwich. 

People don’t realize this until they really stop and think about it, but there are actually four different types of eggs McDonald’s uses depending on the item they are used for. All varieties are made with real eggs, but they are prepared and served slightly differently. The Egg McMuffin uses its own distinct type: the round, “cracked” egg. The rest of the sandwiches use pre-cooked, folded eggs. There are also two slightly different types of scrambled egg — the one used for the Big Breakfast platter, and the one used for the breakfast burrito.

Except for the burrito, which arrives at the restaurant pre-made, you can freely mix and match the other three egg types with most other items. Whether it’s a standard in-app swap or something you need to request in person varies by configuration, but in our experience, there are few combinations that are entirely impossible.

Try the scrambled eggs on your next sandwich, the folded egg on an Egg McMuffin, the cracked egg on a McGriddle, or even one of the sandwich eggs with your Big Breakfast for a subtle but still distinct difference in each one’s flavor profile. It’ll take some experimenting to find which ones you like best, but there really isn’t any configuration that we would outright advise against, as all are worth a try. 

In our ultimate ranking of McDonald’s food items, the three top spots were taken up by breakfast sandwiches. You really can’t go wrong with any of the chain’s breakfast sandwiches or any of the individual varieties of each sandwich; all of them are expertly designed to have all of their components complement one another perfectly. However, just like with the eggs, you can end up with some surprisingly tasty sandwiches if you start swapping out the breads that come with each one.

Again, some of these are official subs, while others are more in hack territory and will need to be asked for in person. But there is a fun flavor journey to be had by mixing and matching them. Having a steak, egg, and cheese sandwich on a McGriddle instead of a bagel brings a delicious sweetness to the restaurant’s portable version of steak and eggs. The combination of Canadian bacon and a cracked egg that is usually unique to the Egg McMuffin also tastes great between biscuits or bagels, and so on. 

As with the eggs, you’ll need to do your own experimenting to find a combination you’ll fall in love with. But be sure you really play with this hack when McDonald’s has a limited-time sandwich, such as the recent Honey Brown Butter Bacon and Egg & Cheese Biscuit, so you can make the most of unique components and sauces before they disappear. 

If you’ve never actually ordered one of McDonald’s bagel sandwiches, you might not realize that they contain a component that no other breakfast sandwich has: McDonald’s breakfast sauce. This creamy, Hollandaise-like sauce really makes the bagel sandwiches stand out from the rest of the McDonald’s breakfast menu. And honestly, the bagels shouldn’t get to have the sauce all to themselves. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way.

The most obvious thing to try is to have the breakfast sauce added to any or all of the other sandwiches. And it complements almost all of them extremely well. We say “almost all” because we don’t personally think it mixes well with the sweet, maple syrup taste of the McGriddle, but don’t let us dissuade you from trying that yourself if it sounds good. In addition to being a topping, the breakfast sauce also makes a tasty dip for breakfast burritos and hash browns, as well as a pour-over sauce for your entire Big Breakfast — again, your choice if you want to include the hotcakes in that.

Either way, the McDonald’s breakfast sauce has been held hostage by the bagel sandwiches for far too long. Ordering some on or with your other breakfast sandwiches should become an automatic go-to far all your future breakfast orders. 

Everyone knows that the McDonald’s in other countries have their own unique configurations of American menu items. This includes breakfast sandwiches, with Norway having a version of the Egg McMuffin that deserves to be a standard offering in the U.S. as well. It not only makes the sandwich more filling, but it opens up a possibility that most people never even realized was an option — adding the veggies that come on the burgers and chicken sandwiches to the breakfast items.

To get an Egg McMuffin Norwegian-style, you have to request adding lettuce, tomato, and onions to the sandwich, then swap out the Canadian bacon for a hamburger patty. These aren’t standard in-app additions, so you’ll have to do so in person. Your best shot at getting the veggies — and especially the hamburger patty — is to order an Egg McMuffin as close to the end of breakfast hours as possible, when restaurants have already started prepping for the switchover to lunch and have components for both available at the same time. This is the same stretch of time that allows for the viral “brunch menu” hack that has seen people able to add breakfast items to a double cheeseburger.

With the burger being the trickiest sub to make, a sausage patty works nicely to get you just a little bit closer to the Norwegian Egg McMuffin experience. All you’d be missing is the McFeast sauce that American McDonald’s locations don’t carry.

Instead of waiting for Taco Bell’s defunct waffle taco to be revived, you can hack a McDonald’s Big Breakfast with Hotcakes to get a fairly close approximation right now — with the obvious exception of it being wrapped in a pancake rather than a taco. Still, the McDonald’s breakfast tacos/pancake tacos are a popular menu hack, so much so that they are even promoted on official McDonald’s franchisee social media accounts.

Unlike most of the other tips on this list, creating the McDonald’s pancake tacos doesn’t require hacking the menu or doing any sort of order substitutions. You simply order the Big Breakfast with Hotcakes as it comes, and the rest falls on you to bring it all together. Spread out the three hotcakes; split the eggs, sausage, and hash browns evenly across all three; drizzle syrup over the tops of each one; and then pick up each hotcake into a fold and eat it like a taco. It’s a little messy, and takes a not-insignificant amount of work, but it’s more than worth it. 

What about the biscuit that also comes with the Big Breakfast? Either crumble it over the top of the tacos, just eat it separately with some honey, or sacrifice the sausage patty from the taco and make a sausage and biscuit sandwich to go along with your egg- and potatoes-only pancake tacos.

In terms of fully constructed menu items, the Egg McMuffin is the healthiest breakfast item at McDonald’s. But what if you’re looking for something even healthier, or just smaller and easier to eat on the go? Another thing many people don’t realize is that you can get almost any individual component of a McDonald’s menu item by itself. Some things require an in-person request, but most employees will do it for you. And this also applies to many of the components of the various McDonald’s breakfasts.

For instance, you can order just the scrambled eggs by themselves for a light, protein-rich breakfast snack. Ditto for an individual sausage patty. You can also order just a McGriddle “bun” by itself for syrup-flavored pancakes you can easily eat in the car or on the run. Obviously, there are already solo items you can order, like the hash browns or a biscuit, to achieve the same effect. But we still wanted to point out that your options for lighter, more portable breakfast fare aren’t limited to just what is on the main menu of McDonald’s.

A single sausage patty or hunk of scrambled eggs and a black coffee is actually a pretty healthy breakfast, and for much cheaper — and certainly much more quickly — than you’d be able to get an equivalent breakfast at a regular restaurant or cafe. 

When the Egg McMuffin was first being test-marketed, and McDonald’s was still working out the kinks, one of the versions that was tried in 1972 involved serving it open-faced and topped with honey or jam. It didn’t stick, of course — but if adding a bit of sweetness to an Egg McMuffin sounds appealing, it’s incredibly easy to hack your way into that exact test version of the sandwich.

All you have to do is order the Egg McMuffin, take off the top bread, and then grab some packets of honey and jam. Depending on where you’re located, there’s a chance you’ll be able to get grape jam, and you might also have strawberry preserves as an option. Either way, you can top the sandwich with either the honey or the jam, and enjoy.

Of course, you don’t have to do it open-faced and can still enjoy this sweeter twist on an Egg McMuffin with both halves of the bread — just like you can also do both jam and honey if you are so inclined. And if you love it, you can obviously add jam and/or honey to any other breakfast sandwich you want. The biscuit sandwiches, in particular, properly complement the flavors of jam and honey, of course. 

For the most part, when a fast food menu item goes away, it’s gone. But there are times when most, if not all, of the components of said defunct menu item are still being used by other current menu items — making it possible to hack a version of the defunct item. And that is true of the Triple Breakfast Stacks sandwiches, which were a limited-time breakfast menu addition introduced in 2018.

Not containing anything unique to the sandwich, the Triple Breakfast Stacks were simply a generous helping of existing McDonald’s breakfast item components piled high on a single sandwich. You would choose between biscuit, McGriddle, and McMuffin, which would then be filled with bacon, a cracked egg, two sausage patties, and two slices of cheese. Obviously, all of that is available through current menu items, but ordering it will take some work — and the amount of work will depend on your bread choice.

It’s a bit too much to fully explain here, but if you look at the components of the type of Triple Breakfast Stack you want, you should be able to figure out what additions you need, which ones are doable in the app, and which ones will require in-person ordering. But it’s definitely doable, and worth it if you like the idea of a Triple Stack but don’t have the means to time-travel to 2018 to order one directly.